Three dead, 79 missing as gas explosion rocks high-rise

Three people were killed and another 79 were unaccounted for
after a gas explosion rocked a residential building in Russia on Monday,
leaving hundreds without a home in freezing temperatures on New Year’s Eve.

An entire section of the 12-storey residential building
collapsed when a gas explosion tore through the high-rise in the industrial
city of Magnitogorsk nearly 1,700 kilometres (1,050 miles) east of Moscow in
the Ural mountains.

“Three people have been pulled alive from the rubble and
three are dead,” Boris Dubrovsky, governor of the Chelyabinsk region where the
city is located, said in a statement.

Officials said that the fate of 79 people was unclear, with
police working to locate their whereabouts.

National television broadcast footage of the mangled heaps
of concrete as hundreds of rescue workers combed the debris in temperatures of
minus 18 Celsius (minus 0.4 F).

In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, President
Vladimir Putin ordered emergencies minister Yevgeny Zinichev and health
minister Veronika Skvortsova to travel to Magnitogorsk to personally oversee
the rescue operation.

The Soviet-era high-rise was built in 1973 and was home to
around 1,100 people. The residents have been evacuated.

A total of 110 people were registered as residents of the
affected section of the building, regional authorities said. Sixteen of them
have been evacuated, and another 15 were not home at the time of the blast.

Deadly gas explosions are relatively common in Russia where
much of the infrastructure dates back to the Soviet era and safety requirements
are often ignored.

In the meantime, a lion attacked and killed a young American
woman who had just started working at the facility where it was kept, the
centre said Sunday.

Alexandra Black, 22, was passionate about wildlife and had
worked just 10 days as an intern at the facility in Burlington, North Carolina.

“The Conservators Center is devastated by the loss of a
human life today,” it said in a statement.

“While a husbandry team led by a professionally trained
animal keeper was carrying out a routine enclosure cleaning, one of the lions
somehow left a locked space and entered the space the humans were in and
quickly killed one person.

“It is unclear at this time how the lion left the locked
enclosure. At no time did the lion ever enter a space that was not enclosed by
the park’s perimeter fence,” the statement added, expressing its condolences to
Black’s family and announcing it would close temporarily.

The lion was killed so Black could be retrieved, the centre
said.

Black, a recent graduate of Indiana University, had worked a few weeks at the facility home to dozens of animals and 21 different species, its website says.

Maritime First Newspaper is a liberal Nigeria maritime online news aggregator and blog. The site offers news, blogs, and original content that covers maritime, politics, business, entertainment, health and safety, interviews, popular media, and local news.
For Inquires: 08023148914, 08069749755